bumbershoot

finally going to get a chance to get out of pullman for a while over labor day weekend for a trek to seattle and vancouver. bumbershoot happens to be this weekend. does anyone have any input on which day would be best to catch as far as the lineup is concerned? oh wait, i forgot no one bothers to read my blog anyway.

amber waves of grain

so we were driving to moscow last weekend, and we noticed that everything had suddenly turned brown. or "golden," if you want to make it sound pretty. even the lentils. no!!!! not the lentils! i hope this isn't the beginning of several months of bleakness.


wheat and sky 

hot or not?

so i went on a little evening bike ride after dinner tonight, and i must say, i got a little chilly towards the end. sorry to hear about all the entire midwest though, that heat wave sounds really rough.

so speaking of bicycling, my dad reminded my that RAGBRAI is this week. what is ragbrai, you might ask? only the most exciting way to travel across the great state of iowa. 10,000+ dedicated cyclists gather the last week of each july and spend 7 days pedaling and eating their way across the state. the des moines register covers the ride with daily updates here. the riders have it pretty rough this year with the heat.

i thought i would share a picture from my ragbrai ride in 1998. dad to the left, clif to the right. triumphantly dipping our tires in the mississippi river at the end of the last day.


ragbrai xxiv

daysleeper

no, i haven't been intentionally ignoring you, dearest blog, i've just had a crazy week of overnight emergency shifts with no free time. i know that it wasn't anyone's intention to "initiate me" into things by throwing me out there to be in charge over the weekend, but it kind of seemed like that anyway. my first two days on emergency the computer system kept failing, which made it a little hard to learn to use. sure, i could call the resident on back-up with questions, but after so many late night phone calls i felt the need to prioritize. and it wasn't any use in calling some of the time, because it wasn't anything they could fix. but somehow after a few days things started to fall into place. now i don't feel so intimidated by the asshole that doesn't want to spend any money on his dog and tries to get me to give out our services for free, or so guilty about the fact that people have to wait because there is something a little more critical going on than their current problem.

anyway, i saw a lot of cases over the past week and learned a lot about medicine and about the hospital in general. my next stretch of ER shifts won't be so scary (sometime in august). i'm glad to be back on a normal schedule and enjoying the daylight. i've had a weekend to recover and adjust.

we got to see a few more sights of the pullman/moscow area. we finally found a good restaurant; what a relief! it's called red door and is your fine dining/wine type of place. and we went to a one-screen movie theater in downtown pullman. i think it's from the 30's and has been renovated. hopefully this week/weekend i'll be able to find some outdoor attractions while the weather is nice.